


i'd like to die as a child

by cascrane (thunder_and_stars)



Category: no sleep in the city of dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/cascrane
Summary: It’s Tuesday.Last Friday, Key almost died. Before that, it was Andy, then Raven, then me and El.Before all of that, during that time that nobody will ever quite speak of, it was Jackal.We don’t seem to go more than three days without some kind of serious incident or injury around here, now. I think we used to be better, but I’m not so sure that’s true anymore, if I really think about it. I think we all just like saying that things were better with Jackal, because then we don’t have to face the idea that we’re all just scared kids with way too much responsibility.It’s the truth, though, and Jackal was just another scared kid.





	1. tuesday. 03.25. eleven pm.

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for part three of no sleep. lu, if you're here, no. go away. you're not allowed to read this.

tuesday. 03.25. eleven pm.

It’s Tuesday. It feels like the world is falling apart, sometimes, these days. Nobody will ever read this, and that’s fine. Nobody needs to read this. That said, if anyone is reading this, I’m sorry we couldn’t do better.

It’s Tuesday, the first Tuesday since the rain started to come. It’s really spring now, with the near constant downpours. I used to like the spring, I think. I used to play in the rain with Ale and Sof and Danny and we would run and spin and scream ourselves hoarse, and Mami would always have the same look on her face when we padded through the door, soaking wet.

My library book was due yesterday. I haven’t been able to find it in a week. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. Maybe Hollis took the book. Maybe they returned it. I doubt it, but I really can’t pay any more late fees.

Everything was okay when I woke up this morning. I was with El, as always, in the tunnel that we’ve started to call home. Everything was fine then.

We had an early patrol, assigned to us by Raven, who had taken over for the time being. So we got up, and I left my phone with Key so it would charge, since there isn’t any power in an empty tunnel and the battery had died. We went out on patrol, and it was normal.

Things were fine, for a few hours.

We got coffee and walked around. We rode the train up to Inwood, then back down to Central Park. We talked to some of the other people around the city. El got stopped to take pictures for half a dozen tourists, which he absolutely hated, which meant it was really funny for me to watch.

We went out to Brooklyn for lunch, sat in Newtown Bagels with Nicky and Key and ate the free food they gave us and talked about patrol and asked questions about magic and simply caught up with our friends.

It’s Tuesday.

Last Friday, Key almost died. Before that, it was Andy, then Raven, then me and El. 

Before all of that, during that time that nobody will ever quite speak of, it was Jackal.

We don’t seem to go more than three days without some kind of serious incident or injury around here, now. I think we used to be better, but I’m not so sure that’s true anymore, if I really think about it. I think we all just like saying that things were better with Jackal, because then we don’t have to face the idea that we’re all just scared kids with way too much responsibility.

It’s the truth, though, and Jackal was just another scared kid.

Sofie called me, at lunch. I wanted to talk to her, really, but I didn’t know what to say, so my phone just kept buzzing against my leg where I had tucked it into the pocket of my jeans, and it had almost gone to voicemail by the time I picked up.

Sofie sounded tired and breathless and almost scared.

She said she was worried about me. She wouldn’t say why. I don’t know why she would be worried about me, right now. I told her college was going fine. I told her I missed her and Ale. I told her to call me if she ever came home for a visit.

There’s a part of me that’s afraid I’m never going to get that call.

I think that part of me is the rational part, really. I do dangerous things every single day, right alongside El. We’ve lost people before. We’ll lose more people in the time to come. What’s to say it won’t be me, next time? 

Sometimes I think it should be me, next time. Every time we fight some monster, I’m useless. I can’t do magic. I don’t have a weapon. All I can do is punch whatever is coming at me, which is fine against groups, but it doesn’t do much when we’re up against giant concrete golems trying to smash our brains into the cracks of the pavement.

Sometimes I think it should have been me, last time. Maybe then we would still be okay. Maybe Hollis wouldn’t be shattered, and Raven wouldn’t be trembling when she had to make calls as the new leader, and everything would be okay.

Jackal was a good leader. He was a good mage, and a good fighter, and a good person.

And he had sacrificed himself for us.

We aren’t doing much with his sacrifice right now, with everyone still shaky and confused. So maybe it should have been me. El would have been fine. El would have moved on. 

El is the master at moving on. He knows how to lose attachments. He knows how to handle it. Key would have gotten through it. Aside from that, I doubt anyone would have really noticed.

Because really, who’s going to miss the kid who can’t even do magic and has anxiety about everything and can’t even fight well enough to save his friends?

El doesn’t like when I say things like that, so I’ve stopped saying them around him. I still think them, though, and I still feel like maybe I should be the one who’s gone. I talk to Key about it, sometimes, in the late nights when we can’t think straight and he tells me he wants to jump off the bridge because he already feels like he’s falling constantly, so maybe hitting the ground wouldn’t be such a bad thing in the end. I tell him that it should have been me. I tell him that they deserve better than me.

I tell him that El is such a wonderful person, so bold and bright and  _ good _ , good at magic and good at living and good with people and good right there in his heart. I tell him that since El is such a wonderful person, I can’t believe he’s with me. I can’t believe he settled for me.

There’s no way that someone as great as him could love someone as broken as me, not the way he claims to.

And Key just sits there and listens quietly, rubs my shoulder and tells me that we’ll be okay.

We’ll get through it together. That’s what Key says. We’ll do it together. I keep falling, and you keep living.

I’m not sure if it’s working, but I’m trying.

Sometimes, I think if I died, the only one who would miss me would be Sofie. I know that’s not true, somewhere, deep in the rational part of my brain. I know that my family loves me, all of them, and I love them more than I can put into words, but it’s not the logical part of me that says that they won’t miss me. It’s the part that says that Danny is trying to distance himself from the family, that’s why we never hear from him. The part that says that Ale hates me, because he has to hate me, after what I’ve done. The part that says Mami and Zach won’t forgive me for all the lies, for the danger, for the recklessness that put all of them at risk.

I don’t think Sofie could hate me. I hope Sofie can’t hate me. I don’t think Sofie knows how to truly hate anyone.

It’s Tuesday, and I got a text from Ale reminding me to eat dinner and drink enough water and to stop supplying El with coffee to fuel his addiction. It’s Tuesday, and Ale should be in classes, and with all the lies my family believes, I should be in classes, but Ale has never once asked me about school.

I think he knows, sometimes. Then I think he can’t know, because if he knew, he would hate me, hate me like I hate me, and somehow he doesn’t. So he can’t possibly know.

There’s blood all over my shirt. I think I’m starting to understand why Key always wears his crimson hoodie. It’s impossible to see the blood over the color of it.

My shirt is light grey, and it’s covered with blood, sprayed and spattered and dripped and smeared and soaked through it. My side still aches through the magical stitches Andy had put in, because he had been low on magical energy and had settled for a reel of magical thread to close the gash in my side.

The fighting was bad today. Everyone was off and unsure and shaky. We got hit by something in the park by the river. I didn’t get a very good look, but from what I saw and what I heard from Key after, it was some kind on beast made of dark crystal, all jagged edges and wicked sharp teeth and claws. 

I got nailed in the side, which wasn’t a particularly nice feeling, and it’s almost like I can still feel it, jaws locked around my side and teeth digging harsh into my skin, blood soaking through the fabric of my shirt.

El took a nasty hit to the head trying to get it off me, did some weird magical thing that I didn’t understand and he didn’t have the presence of mind to understand, and he got thrown into a concrete and steel pillar for his troubles.

Raven was supposed to be there, but she wasn’t answering, and Key got knocked around and I lost track of him pretty fast, and I think we would have all be killed but then it was just gone.

I don’t know what it was. Key won’t tell me anything, and I think he might know, but he’s being all cryptic and told me to stop worrying and try to get some rest, like I hadn’t already tried and given up when flashes of him and El -- bleeding, dying, dead -- flickered across my closed eyelids on a loop. I didn’t tell him that part.

El is sleeping currently, which he probably shouldn’t be doing, since he got hit in the head pretty hard, but he was awake enough to start rambling in Welsh, which concerned me for all of the ten seconds it took me to remember that English was his first language, that he only knew phrases of Welsh from Mari, his old foster sister, and that he was an idiot and a bastard. He had grinned up at me, cocky and bright and laughing, and I had kicked him in the shin.

Andy says El will be fine with the concussion, to let him sleep, that the chances of El slipping into a coma are very low and the chances of El punching me in the face if I wake him up are very high, which all seems reasonable enough, so I let him sleep.

Every once in a while, when my breath hitches in my chest and the panic swells in my ribcage, I text Key to make sure it’s fine to leave El. Key isn’t a doctor by any means, but he’s a smart kid who’s read every book on anatomy and biology that he could get from the public library, so he’s qualified enough to calm me down.

Key is at home, currently, where he had offered that El and I could stay with him, but I declined, since he didn’t look great and I didn’t want to intrude and really, Nicky and Raven had enough to deal with right now, especially since they spent half their time trying to find Hollis, who kept running off and hiding for days at a time.

I don’t think anybody knows what to do about any part of our situation right now.

Key’s got hypothermia, probably, but he wouldn’t let Andy check him even after he fell into the river, which really happens to us more than it should, so now he’s at home, curled up under half a dozen blankets and trying to regain the ability to feel his fingers.

I need to sew my shirt back up later, or wait until El is willing to do some magical mending for me.

I normally don’t mind not having magic. Magic causes trouble. I worry about it when we fight, and I get annoyed about it when it’s late and I’m tired but I have to do some dumb chore that would be so much easier if I could snap my fingers and get it over with.

El maintains that that’s not what magic is like, and I want to believe him, but I also don’t think he understands what it’s like to spend three hours trying to darn one of my only two pairs of socks because he had gotten himself knocked out and I really needed to not get frostbite walking around in the wintertime chill.

I try not to fight with El. I try not to fight with anyone, really.

But sometimes, it’s hard. Sometimes I think that maybe Key and I should reconsider getting through this together, that maybe we should just give up. It would be easier to give up.

I think about death a lot. I think about death probably far more than is healthy, but I can’t help what I think about. I think about Jackal dying. I think about Ale getting hurt, almost dying. I think about watching helplessly as my friends get injured.

I think about being gone, and I always come to the conclusion that nobody would miss me.

Key has his family now, his people, people who are there for him no matter what. He doesn’t need me anymore. I don’t think he ever really needed me, but he has people now.

El would move on. El knows how to move on. El knows how to forget.

El had already abandoned me, so I know he can be okay on his own. I know there are things he’d choose over me. I know he chose over me.

And I could be gone.

But I’m not. I’m not dead yet, not gone, not out of all of this just yet. I’m hurt and aching -- yeah, that’s not new -- and tired down to my very bones, but I’m here. I’m real.

For now, I think that’s enough. For now, I think that’s the best I’m going to get.


	2. saturday. 03.29. one pm.

saturday. 03.29. one pm.

I think I might be dead, now.


	3. monday. 03.31. three am.

monday. 03.31. three am.

Key says I’m not dead. I can’t tell if I’m disappointed.

We’re sitting on the bridge now. I can’t remember anything from yesterday, or the day before, or Friday. I think it was Friday.

Key says it’s normal to forget. Key says I’m fine.

I don’t feel fine.

Will is sitting with us. He’s being quiet, barely there, and I know why we’re on his bridge.

Key takes me to the bridge to think. It’s calming for me there. Nothing to hear, nothing to see. River dark beneath us, sky empty above, nothing.

Key takes me to the bridge because he knows it helps me. Key takes me to Will’s bridge so he can be sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Will won’t let anything happen to us here. 

Key drops his wards. He looks exhausted. I feel exhausted. He’s watching me write, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows I do this so I stay sane. He’s the only one who knows I do it. 

It had actually been Ale and Sofie’s idea, all those years ago. They told me I should write down all the things swirling around in my head. They said it would help me think, see things clearer, think things through, process everything. I don’t know if it really helps, but I still do it.

I don’t know what else I can do.

Key is sitting next to me.

It used to be El who sat next to me. It used to be El who held my hand through the panic and the worry and the anxiety and the impossibility of it all weighing down on me. It used to be El who told me that I wasn’t supposed to die, that we would be okay, that I mattered.

I don’t know what El is to me now. He doesn’t either. I think we’re making progress. It doesn’t feel like enough.

I miss before.

Key is sitting next to me, and his fingers are tapping patterns on the ground beneath us, sitting on the empty walkway of the bridge in the dead of night.

Sometimes I just want to stop falling. That’s what Key says when we do this.

I know the feeling.

I feel like if I jumped, it wouldn’t change anything, not while I was falling, since I’m always falling, Key says. I think the only thing that would change is hitting something. Stopping falling. I think it would be nice to stop falling.

I don’t know how to comfort him.

You’re not dead, he tells me, and when he turns to look at me, he looks downright skeletal, gaunt and shadowed sharply, dark smudges under his eyes from a horrendous lack of sleep accompanied by an inescapable litany of nightmares and terrors and memories.

The memories are the worst, because you can’t pretend they’re just a dream, just a wild thing that freaked you out. You can’t wake up and know it’s not real, it’s just an idea, because it happened, and you were there, and sometimes you can still feel the blood coating your skin, warm and drying and tacky and seeping into all the creases of your skin and refusing to leave no matter how raw you scrubbed your hands.

We’re not okay. We know that.

The best thing about this, whatever this is, whatever me and Key are, sitting on this bridge in the dark, speaking words that will never see the light of day, is that we know we’re not okay. We know we’re not going to be okay anytime soon. We know nothing is going to change in the blink of an eye.

So there’s no pretending. It’s just real.

Key says I could have died. Key says maybe I did die, for a moment. Key says it doesn’t matter, because I’m here now, we’re here, we’re real.

He promises he isn’t going to leave.

Aydan asked me what dying felt like once. Aydan asked me what dying felt like after I had woken up gasping for air that my lungs refused to tolerate, after Key had covered every inch of my bloody skin with runes and scripts and symbols, a metal pendant pressed roughly into the skin of my palm, after Andy had spent three hours trying to piece my chest back together while I tried to scream and couldn’t, because I wasn’t real.

It hadn’t made me angry, though, Aydan asking. That was the weird part. He had waited, yes, waited long enough that I was fine, and it was a strange question that he had voiced once when we were talking as we wandered on a late patrol, his sister off with my boyfriend in a different area.

It feels like nothing. That was what I had told him. It feels like everything. 

It feels like dying. It feels like dying, and anybody who doesn’t know what that means won’t be able to comprehend how it feels, no matter how I try to say it, because we express feelings through comparison, and dying isn’t comparable to anything else.

Not everything feels like something. That was what El used to say.

I know I’m not dead. I know I wasn’t dead, even in those days I can’t recall, because I’m here right now and I’m not dead.

I know I’m not dead, and if I’m being completely honest, I think that’s the part that scares me, because if I was dead then I wouldn’t be stuck trying to piece together the atrocious mess that is my life. 

Sometimes, right now, seemingly always, these days, I want to be dead, and that scares me too.

I tell Key all of this, and he nods silently and gnaws at his bottom lip and stares out at the darkness, like he’s contemplating if he could hit the bottom before Will noticed he has jumped.

I love you, I tell Key, soft and sudden and tired, and he nods.

I love you too, he says.

And it’s a different kind of love than I’m used to now. It’s not like with El, not like with El was, not like romance and wonder and kissing in the rain in the middle of the night and hoping to last forever.

It feels like sitting on the roof with Sofie, like snowball fights with Ale and cups of tea with Danny and hugging my brother as he leaves for college and I know I’m going to miss him more than anything.

It feels like family, and it’s warm and nice and familiar and it makes me miss my siblings terribly, so much it makes my heart ache and strain in my chest.

Key has a family now. Key has Raven and Nicky, who are like siblings and parents at the same time, and they’re wonderful to him, and he loves them. Key has Alex who runs the bookstore and teaches him sign language and knows how to make him smile without saying a word.

Key has a family, but before he had them, he had El and me. It was always El and Key and me.

And then, suddenly, sharply, it wasn’t El anymore.

Key and I have each other, just each other, nobody else, in a way that nobody else can quite fit into.

It hurts to love him this much sometimes. It hurts to think about what the three of us were before we were just the two of us. We don’t talk about what happened with El. We don’t talk about what happened after.

We just moved on. Key and I had each other, and El was back, but it was different, he was different, we were different, we didn’t quite fit anymore, not like we had before.

We didn’t talk about it.

I miss Jackal, Key voices softly.

I miss him too. I wish he wasn’t gone. I wish everything wasn’t broken. I wish I could turn back time and make everything better.

Key has scabs blooming across all of his knuckles, barely healed, on both his hands, red and raw and painful, and I know exactly what they’re from and I feel like it’s my fault. I brush my thumb over the back of his hand, not touching any of the scabs, but he knows what I’m looking at.

They’re not your fault. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.

That’s all he says. He doesn’t say why, or how, or that he didn’t mean to, or that he could have healed them hours ago if he really wanted to. He doesn’t say any of it, and I don’t need him to.

The scrapes on his hands are familiar. They’re from one of his more unhealthy stims, from scrubbing his balled fists across the rough carpet, insistent and rhythmic and painful, until all the skin had worn off and blood dripped across his fingers and he had to wash them off in the sink and hiss at the way the water stung. I know him better than he realizes, sometimes. He’s a quiet observer, always, and he knows practically everything about everyone, but he forgets that people see him, sometimes.

I was worried. That’s what he says later, after minutes have passed in silence, and I almost don’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s still curling and uncurling his fingers, gaze focused down on his knuckles. 

I was worried about you. I thought you were dead.

I tell him I’m real, he’s real, we’re real, and he manages a faint something that almost resembles a smile.

We’re not okay. We’re not going to be okay. We both know that, better than anyone else does. Raven and Nicky don’t hear the things we share. El doesn’t fit into our group like he used to. It’s just us.

I can’t bear to lose anyone else.

We sit on the bridge for a long time. It’s quiet. It’s almost nice.


End file.
